1921-S Buffalo Nickel For Grading

Those 21-S Buffalos usually have horrible strikes so grading is a bit difficult - I'd would say (guess) F12 (ish)?

After the 1913 Type I, the 1921 and 1921-S are the next easiest dateless Buffs to identify because of the weird one-year re-design of the knot. Nobody knows why this re-design happened, but the ODV-004 knot looks fairly sloppy and the 1920 knot design was brought back the next production year, 1923. The ribbon designs were tinkered with throughout the 1920s to make the date fit.

Almost all 1921-S Buffs have partially abraded third feathers, either a lighter feather than normal or a piece of the feather missing. This die pair has a lighter right side of the third feather. (It isn't the two-feather, two-feather without the designer's initial, or the two-and-a-half feather.)

There's enough hair and feather detail for the obverse to make VG-10. I don't know why the obverse rim at LIBERTY is so worn on this coin. The corresponding reverse rim is a little flattened, too. The reverse looks like a VG-10/F-12 bubble coin. This may suggest slightly mismatched die states, though it is usually the reverse on 1921-S coins that is a later die state.

There is pitting on the reverse, likely from environmental damage. Overall, I'd call this one VG details, ED.